tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-273839932024-03-18T19:58:18.530-07:00GustavHasford.comDevoted to the life and work of the Vietnam veteran, best-selling author and Oscar-nominated screenwriter.Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-24655943082611150102014-05-25T11:31:00.000-07:002014-05-25T11:34:05.732-07:00BEDTIME STORY By Gustav Hasford<br />
<br />
Sleep, America.<br />
Silence is a warm bed.<br />
Sleep your nightmares of small<br />
cries cut open now<br />
in the secret places of<br />
Black Land, Bamboo City.<br />
<br />
Sleep tight, America<br />
dogtags eating sweatgrimaced<br />
TV-people<br />
Five O'clock news: My son the Meat.<br />
<br />
Laughing scars, huh?<br />
Novocained fist.<br />
Squeeze every window empty<br />
then hum.<br />
<br />
Fear only the natural unreality<br />
and kiss nostalgia goodbye.<br />
Bayonet teddy bear and snore.<br />
Bad dreams are something you ate.<br />
So sleep, you mother.<br />
<br />
<br />
From <i>Winning Hearts and Minds</i>, a collection of poetry by Vietnam vets, published in 1972. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"></span></b>
"I joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War while I was still in Vietnam. About February, '68.
Also, I had a poem in Winning Hearts and Minds, published by the First Casualty Press, which was the
first anthology of writing about the war by the veterans themselves."<br />
--Gus Hasford,
LA Times Magazine, June 28, 1987Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-41750686505996532112014-05-25T11:18:00.000-07:002014-05-25T11:18:58.033-07:00Editorial, L.A. Times, 1980FIVE YEARS LATER, THE NIGHTMARE REMAINS POISON<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Still Gagging on the Bitterness of Vietnam </span><br />
By Gustav Hasford<br />
LOS ANGELES TIMES, April 30, 1980<br />
<br />
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the final withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. After millions of words have been written trying to determine the lessons of Vietnam, I can only share what I, as a Vietnam veteran, believe that I have learned. (I am not, and will never be, a spokesman for Vietnam veterans. I speak for myself alone.)<br />
<br />
The very first thing that I have learned about Vietnam as a writer is that I am no longer talking to two-thirds of you. The word "Vietnam" in the first sentence of this article triggered a negative response somewhere, and most of you are about to turn the page. To those stalwart few who remain: Welcome to the world of the disenchanted.<br />
<br />
The second thing that I have learned after 12 years as an unreconstructed Vietnam veteran is that, while I deeply respect, and would fight to preserve, the Constitution of the United States, I am now and must remain a devoted enemy of the federal government of the United States.<br />
<br />
Talking about Vietnam, I have learned, is like talking about cancer at the dinner table. For more than a decade now, my friends have humored me in what they have called my "tiresome obsession" as I continue to work at understanding the roots and lessons of our involvement in Vietnam. It is difficult for them to understand what I mean when I attempt to explain that I cannot forget the war because there's gunpowder in my cereal bowl.<br />
<br />
I write about the war in Vietnam in a more or less futile attempt to convince a dwindling handful of people that an important part of the American dream is dead and down there in the tomb with John F. Kennedy. When the battle is lost, the soldier attacks. When the cancer is malignant, the doctor operates. So do writers write. And I echo the words of Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July, who said: "They should be glad that I came home from Vietnam and wrote a book. I could have bought a gun."<br />
<br />
I am not an expert on the Vietnam War. All I know is what I read in the newspapers and what I observed as a Marine Corps war correspondent in Vietnam.<br />
<br />
During the five years since the fall of Saigon, I have learned almost nothing about the longest war in U.S. history from television, except that the world is full of violent Vietnam veterans who have inconvenient memories of combat experiences and who subsequently shoot at people they believe to be Viet Cong. After a satisfyingly dramatic climax, the crazed veterans are captured unharmed and turned over to sympathetic social workers by compassionate SWAT teams. Recently, the TV executives who during the war cut from body bags to beer commercials have given us a new sitcom called "Six O'Clock Follies," featuring two GI reporters and a "cute weather girl" in the Armed Forces radio station in Saigon.<br />
<br />
The most important truth that I have learned about Vietnam came from the Academy Award-winning documentary, Hearts and Minds, when Daniel Ellsberg, with tears in his eyes, said that when he heard that Robert Kennedy had been assassinated he suddenly felt that there was no longer any hope of changing America.<br />
<br />
From politicians the verdict on our Vietnam adventure has been more encouraging. Jimmy Carter, the first political faith-healer to win the presidency, has granted the American people a verbal presidential pardon for any and all sins that we might have committed in Vietnam, and has officially designated Vietnam to be over and done with, case closed, blood under the bridge. Henry A. Kissinger, for whom no American ever voted, has called Vietnam a "mere footnote" to the great achievement of the new relationship with China. And former President Richard M. Nixon, ignominiously forced to leave the White House after the Watergate scandal, has assured us that Vietnam was "America's finest hour."<br />
<br />
From my fellow citizens I have learned that people fear change more than they fear oppression. We Americans are like cancer patients who prefer to die before accepting the fact that we have sickness that requires treatment.<br />
<br />
From my fellow veterans I have learned the most meaningful lessons of all. Vietnam veterans in America are the children of Frankenstein; you know that you are a Vietnam veteran when your sister won't let you hold her baby. I have learned that for many Vietnam veterans life is a flower without color. Vietnam veterans are often unable to transcend Vietnam, to build on the experience, to go beyond the war to other stages of their lives. For many of us, the Vietnam experience damned the American way of life as a lie from top to bottom. The war shot away our roots.<br />
<br />
I've seen the quiet vets who work organizing rap sessions, who publish newspapers for veterans, who have marched arm in arm into forests of police batons. But I have met the casualties as well. I've met the closet veterans who deny that they served in the war at all, cowed vets who are intimidated by their peers' demand that they repudiate their true experiences and perform as dishonest mimics of themselves, touting the exciting fabricated war stories that everybody wants to hear. I've met the bitter veterans with "bad-paper" discharges who hate themselves and everybody else, too. And the maimed and the lame, the blind and the speechless, the victims of Agent Orange who love their deformed children fiercely, the multiple amputees who needed assistance when they came to throw their Purple Hearts and Silver Stars onto the steps of the Capitol, the apprentices at suicide, the angry and violent veterans who vowed to turn the guns around, who swore that "If we fight again it will be to take these steps . . . the Capitol steps . . . ." And then there are the endless ranks of psychic burnouts, the zombie veterans who were killed in action for all intents and purposed but who don't know enough to lie down and die. And I have met dozens and dozens of Vietnam veterans who tell me that they have been completely unaffected by the war, while it is obvious that they have pushed it down deep, that they have swallowed a whole continent of pain and sadness that remains undigested and is choking them one day at a time.<br />
<br />
Hawks hate the Vietnam veterans for being a candy-ass who couldn't get the job done; those World War II boys won their war and didn't whine about how tough it was, either. Doves hate the Vietnam veteran because, in their view, each and every one routinely slaughtered helpless civilians, especially babies.<br />
<br />
America's breast is a milkless stone, and she demands heroes from her sons. A recent Harris poll shows that 63% of the American people feel that Vietnam veterans "were made suckers, having to risk their lives in the wrong place at the wrong time." Vietnam veterans probably will in fact go down in history as "suckers," but we fall from glory alongside the nation that bred us, because a country that degrades, stigmatizes and humiliates its young for committing the heinous crime of steadfast loyalty can no longer be trusted or taken seriously by anyone. Even animals protect their young.<br />
<br />
What have I learned about Vietnam from the federal government? I have learned, for one thing, that politics is a ballet of devils, and that politicians, with paper roses falling out of their mouths, cannot conceal the blood from distant wounds that stains their neckties--but they do try, and millions do listen and believe, and choose not to see.<br />
<br />
Vietnam, in my opinion, never ended. Peace is only a continuation of hypocrisy by other means, just as Watergate, for example, was a continuation of Vietnam by other means.
Now, five years after the last American soldier left the soil of Vietnam, the sum of our added knowledge is small. Smug in our apathy, few of us would take time to admit that today's problems might in some way be related to the war in Vietnam.<br />
<br />
Our refusal to face our Vietnam experience honestly has meant that the national nightmare of Vietnam continues to poison this country's sense of itself, and that refusal postpones the needed reckoning with our own dark history as well.<br />
<br />
Today, I talk to the 19-year-old children who will soon be dead in the Oil Wars (to them Vietnam is some kind of Chinese breakfast food), and their face-value acceptance of what the government has defined as their patriotic duty puts a cold chord of fear and helplessness into my gut that is not unlike Daniel Ellsberg's response to the death of Robert Kennedy--total impotence in the face of unbridled ruthlessness.<br />
<br />
Recently I have been investigating the possibilities of living in Australia. Perhaps someday the survivors of America will come back and will build log cabins in the streets. At least, as Hemingway said, it's pretty to think so.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I ask you to join me in celebrating the fifth anniversary of the final withdrawal of the United States from Southeast Asia with a degree of pageantry and excitement comparable to that we all enjoyed during Vietnam Veterans' Week--by popping open a cold can of beer and raising a toast: "Here's to the good old days, when we knew who our enemies were and were sanctioned by society to deal with them accordingly. Here's to the good old days."<br />
<br />
Goodby, America. And goodby to Vietnam and the friends who died for nothing.Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-19591192602155194532013-09-16T00:22:00.000-07:002013-09-16T00:24:45.445-07:00Gus on the set of FULL METAL JACKET, October 1985<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I went out to the set where Stanley was supposed to be filming in a little place called Beckton, near Essex. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>It's on the Thames, an abandoned gasworks. I wanted
to see in fact whether the picture was being made. I was contemplating
legal action at the time, and it would've been pointless if there were
no movie.
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I
took a couple of friends al</span>ong with me. We dressed up in tiger-stripe
clothes. Our idea was that they'd be shooting and we'd simply blend in
as though we were extras. We went in, and this little go-fer took us
over to the commissary tent while somebody checked out who I was.<br />
<br />
We were having doughnuts and the go-fer asked: "Who are you? Why'd you come here?"<br />
<br />
I said: "Well, I'm the guy who wrote the book that this film is based upon."<br />
<br />
His eyes lit up and he said: "You're kidding! You're the guy? That's you?"<br />
<br />
I said: "Yeah, yeah, I wrote the book."<br />
<br />
He said: "Well, I want to shake your hand, because Dispatches is the best book I ever read."<br />
<br />
"Hey, I think so too," I said.<br />
<br />
--from <a href="http://gustavhasford.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-several-battlesof-gustav-hasford-by_15.html" target="_blank">The Several Battles of Gustav Hasford</a>, LA Times Magazine, 1987
Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-24938139671489100112013-09-15T23:59:00.001-07:002014-05-25T11:22:21.329-07:00Interview with Gus, Los Angeles Times Magazine, 1987<center>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Several Battles of Gustav Hasford</span></b></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">by Grover Lewis</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> </span></center>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">LOS ANGELES TIMES MAGAZINE, June 28,
1987</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">A Candid Conversation With the Co-Writer
and Fierce, Real-Life Protagonist of <i>Full Metal Jacket</i></span></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"You and me, God--right?"</span></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">--Cpl. Joker in Gustav Hasford's
<i>The Short-Timers</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">SHORT-TIMERS</span></span></center>
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<br /> GUS HASFORD WAS HOME FROM
THE MOVIE WARS, drinking a beer in Santa Monica. The heat had been
fierce in the first week in June, but a late afternoon sea breeze had begun
to play through the palms outside the windows, and in the distance you
could see the hotel with the glass elevator where Lee Marvin threw one
of his enemies off the roof in <i>Point Blank.</i>
<br /> In about three weeks,
Stanley Kubrick's <i>Full Metal Jacket</i>, the movie version of Hasford's
novel <i>The Short-Timers</i>, was scheduled to open. According to
a poster in the lobby of the Wilshire Theater, Hasford shares full screen-writing
credit on the film with Kubrick, the director, and Michael Herr, the author
of <i>Dispatches</i>. Nobody aside from friends knew how to reach
Hasford just yet--his celebrity was still pending--and that tickled him
immensely. He opened another can of Coors.
<br /> We were seated at a
clean white table. I had in front of me a letter Hasford had written
to me on may 20, 1986, from Perth, Australia, where he had repaired after
his screen-writing labors and the long conflict over the film's credits.
For 18 of the last 24 hours, we had been in constant company, talking most
of the time, but I kept giving him sidelong glances, wondering what was
different about him. Nothing, I decided--nothing, so far, at all.
His beer belly looked well watered. He was still rumpled, still piping
full of it, still snapping off bull's-eye invective at his old, familiar
targets.
<br /> I read aloud from the
letter:
<br /> "In the cynical world
of L.A., where show 'biz' deals are conducted in the back alleys of cocktail
parties like self-parodying out-takes from a comedic film noir, you might
want to interject this lively note of (transitory) optimism: I won
my credit battle with Stanley. I beat Stanley, City Hall, The Powers
That Be, and all of the lawyers at Warner Bros., up to and including the
Supreme Boss Lawyer. As a little Canuck friend of mine would say:
<i>I kicked dey butt.</i>"
<br /> "So what was going
on?" I asked. "Kubrick and Herr wanted you to settle for an 'additional
dialogue' credit?"
<br /> "Yeah, but things turned
out happily in the end."
<br /> "You said you weren't
going to, but did you ever hire yourself a movie-business lawyer or an
agent?"
<br /> "Nah."
<br />
<br />
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">THE CAFE CAFARD</span></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
I FIRST MET GUS HASFORD
in 1981 when a mutual friend brought him to dinner at my place in Santa
Monica. I had read his book only a short time before, and he seemed
gratified to know that I had a decent opinion of it. In fact, I thought
it was the best novel I had read about the Vietnam War--the toughest and
purest and most uncompromising.
<br /> Hasford had served
as a combat correspondent with the 1st Marine Division during the Tet Offensive
of 1968. That meant that he had carried a pencil and a notebook and
a gun to defend himself and his fellow grunts during battle. <i>The
Short-Timers</i> was his apocalyptically imagined and stylized depiction
of his experience in Vietnam, viewed through the eyes of "Cpl. Joker" as
he accompanies the "Lusthog Squad" into the gore and madness of combat.
<br /> Hasford is a big fellow,
beefy to paunchy, an innately macho man in his code, but not physically
intimidating to other men. He has a resonant yet curiously high-pitched
voice with a soft trace of Alabama accent. That counted for something
between us right away--the fact that we were both sons of the shirtless
South.
<br /> Once the ice was broken,
we quickly discovered that we had common interests in such arcane subjects
as "lost" Depression-era novels and the history of the American West.
That first evening, Hasford referred to his enormous and somewhat mysterious
collection of books (which he keeps in storage), and then chatted freely
about his admittedly grandiose literary plans. He said he was going
to write several <i>series</i> of books on various topics, in various genres.
<br /> My wife, Rae, and I
lived in an apartment with a lanai that looked out on downtown Santa Monica,
and on his second or third visit, Hasford christened the place. He
called it the "Cafe Cafard," using an obscure French word meaning "beyond
anomie or dread" that he associates with the defeated warriors of Dien
Bien Phu, the granddaddy of all Vietnam defeats back in 1954.
<br /> <i>Cafard</i> fits
in a peculiar way. We've decorated the walls with an antique neon
<i>cerveza</i> sign and a Ralph Steadman litho for old times' sake, and
there was the backdrop of white buildings and swimmy palms. All very
<i>tropique</i>, very <i>tristesse</i>.
<br /> Hasford became a regular
at the Cafe Cafard, sometimes bringing a date, sometimes not. His
attire ran to grunt t-shirts and torn sneakers. He was humming and
cooking, always. He talked about whatever was on his mind.
His imprecations against his publishers--their neglect and abuse of him--were
comic sermons that ran to heroic lengths.
<br /> We became friends,
I think, one night after a party for veterans in Venice. To a civilian
observer like myself, it was a tense, cliquish affair. Hasford and
I headed out early, both a little dispirited, and he offered me a lift
home. During the drive I asked him what he was doing for a living.
I mentioned that if he was free-lancing, I might be able to help with contacts.
Hasford said he was working as a security guard. He was also living
in his car.
<br /> Hasford's fortunes
improved overnight when a Munich businessman with no visible ties to the
movie world optioned the screen rights to <i>The Short-Timers</i>.
Money, to Hasford, meant that he could buy books or travel. He soon
was off on his first trip to Australia, and by the time he returned to
California, he knew that Stanley Kubrick owned the rights to his first
novel.
<br /> Kubrick, Hasford said,
had begun to make serious sounds on the telephone about turning the book
into a picture called <i>Full Metal Jacket</i>. A major film, it
went without saying, since Kubrick didn't make the other kind. The
mind reeled. Hasford stood to make enormous royalties from his worldwide
literary rights alone. And the movie star who would someday play
Joker would ultimately be playing Hasford.
<br /> "Stanley" thus became
a phantom presence around the Cafe Cafard. Before long, Hasford was
making plans to tour Europe and to drop in on Kubrick in London to find
out what was going on. He hadn't been invited onto the team as such,
no, but Kubrick hadn't discouraged his visit, either. Hasford counted
on the fact that Kubrick liked to talk to him on the telephone. True,
Hasford had no contact, no agent or other representation--just a lot of
lengthy phone conversations punched through the long-distance either.
<br /> I saw Hasford off to
England with misgivings near the end of 1984. I was skeptical about
his prospects for getting close to the reclusive Kubrick, but at the same
time I wanted to egg him on to press whatever advantage he had. I
wanted him to get in the middle of things over there and help "Stanley"
make a good movie.
<br /> Little more than a
month passed before Hasford's first letter arrived from his new digs on
Cleveland Terrace, London W2. Hasford posted us regular letters and
made periodic calls and sent along generous packages of arcane books.
But his struggles for recognition for his contributions to the<i> Full
Metal Jacket</i> screenplay seemed very distant.
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"STANLEY"</span></span></center>
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</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <i> </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>YOU AND STANLEY got
acquainted sort of transoceanically?</i>
<br /> Yeah, yeah. After
a while we were talking three or four times a week, usually for hours and
hours at a time. About the movie. Sometimes about all manner
of subjects.
<br /><i> What's the longest
you ever talked to Kubrick on the phone?</i>
<br /> Six or seven hours.
At least six hours, ranging over just about any subject you could think
of. During the initial period, Stanley was just considering making
the film, mulling it over. I don't know at what point I actually
became convinced he was in fact going to make a film. The steps were
so gradual.
<br /> <i> In London, you gradually
got involved with working on the screenplay.</i>
<br /> I was there for a while
and I was just doing all the tourist things, and Michael Herr and I went
out to Stanley's house and met him. I mean, we'd talked on the phone
before, and when I got to England, we were still talking on the phone.
Now pretty much every day we were talking on the phone about the film and
it was getting more and more detailed all the time.
<br /><i> So you didn't see
him often?</i>
<br /> No. I've only
met Stanley one time.
<br /> <i>When the picture
started shooting you were still uncertain about what your credit share
might be.</i>
<br /> For a year and a half
we were in disagreement. From my point of view, I deserved a full
credit. I heard all the arguments against my attitude from Stanley
and Warner Bros. and Michael Herr, and I was never convinced their arguments
were valid.
<br /> <i>So you persisted.</i>
<br /> I persisted until I'd
won. Yeah.
<br /> <i> Did you observe
any of the filming?</i>
<br /> I went out to the set
where Stanley was supposed to be filming in a little place called Beckton,
near Essex. It's on the Thames, an abandoned gasworks. I wanted
to see in fact whether the picture was being made. I was contemplating
legal action at the time, and it would've been pointless if there were
no movie.
<br /> I took a couple of
friends along with me. We dressed up in tiger-stripe clothes.
Our idea was that they'd be shooting and we'd simply blend in as though
we were extras. We went in, and this little go-fer took us over to
the commissary tent while somebody checked out who I was. We were
having doughnuts and the go-fer asked: "Who are you? Why'd
you come here?" I said: "Well, I'm the guy who wrote the book
that this film is based upon." His eyes lit up and he said:
"You're kidding! You're the guy? That's you?" I said:
"Yeah, yeah, I wrote the book." He said: "Well, I want to shake
your hand, because <i>Dispatches</i> is the best book I ever read."
"Hey, I think so too," I said.
<br /><i> Did you run around
with Michael Herr much, or was it strictly a professional relationship?</i>
<br /> Michael and I got to
be pretty good friends until we had the credit dispute. As far as
I know, he's still not speaking to me. I'm speaking to him, but he's
not saying anything back. As much of my work was in the screenplay
as he had in, but he still seems to interpret the fact that I got a full
credit as an intrusion upon his turf. Like, who is this interloper?
<br /> But in fact, I worked
on the screenplay for four years. I had actually written things,
you know, scenes and comments. I would send my work to Stanley, and
undoubtedly Stanley was having Michael write the same scene. Then
Stanley would work it around the way he wanted it. For some reason,
Stanley had given Michael a lot of my work to look at, but I never read
any of the things Michael wrote for the film. We really didn't talk
about it much. I mean, we'd talk about it in general terms like,
"When is this sucker going to be finished?"
<br /><i> What's your feeling
about Kubrick now?</i>
<br /> I like Stanley.
Stanley is funny and human and not as eccentric as he would perhaps prefer
to appear. My favorite movie is <i>Dr. Strangelove</i>, and <i>Paths
of Glory</i> is one of the great classic war films. I'd stand Stanley
a glass anytime. Two, maybe.
<br />
<br />
</span></span><br />
<center>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">LEATHERNECK</span></span></center>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <i> </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>YOU GREW UP in rural
Alabama.</i>
<br /> That's right.
I worked when I was 14. I worked for the Franklin County Times and
the Northwest Alabamian, a regional newspaper. I covered football
games, car wrecks, stuff like that. The first thing I ever published
was an article about coin collecting in <i>Boys' Life</i> when I was 14.
<br /> <i> When did you get
out of school?</i>
<br /> In '66. I didn't
graduate from high school. I refused to graduate from high school.
I didn't want to validate what they were doing. Around that time,
someone did a survey of the state educational systems, and Alabama was
No. 50, and I just didn't...
<br /> I'd started a magazine
for writers called Freelance, a glossy 56-page quarterly. It had
advertising and 1,300 paid subscribers all over the country, $5 a head.
I just did it. My grandfather signed a note for me to borrow the
money. I ran articles exposing songwriter ads and other con jobs
like that.
<br /><i> Did you yourself
research and write these stories?</i>
<br /> No. All this
stuff was written by professional writers. I was just a kid.
I couldn't write the stuff. I was 16. But the experience and
the contacts helped me get my writing job in the Marines.
<br /> <i> When did you join?</i>
<br /> September of '67.
I was 18. I got assigned to be a 4312 Basic Military Journalist with
orders to go on the staff of Leatherneck magazine. But first I had
to go for training to an Army school. I hung around with all these
beery Army guys....So I lost my discipline from Parris Island and became
a hippie.
<br /> For punishment, I was
sent to a place in North Carolina. Me and this other Pfc. were putting
out the base newspaper there, publishing all these articles about Vietnam,
and it was like Custer said: "The only thing you have to know to
be a soldier is to be able to ride toward the sound of the guns."
When you're reading all this stuff about big events happening somewhere,
you get really curious to the point of it being painful wanting to know
the real score.
<br /> I applied to go to
Vietnam. It's called "requesting mast," which is a legal maneuver
that you can do in the military if you feel you're being oppressed.
So I went to Vietnam even though I only had 10 months left to serve, because
in a sense I specifically demanded to be sent to Vietnam, and so they couldn't
think of any reason not to do it and in fact they were perfectly willing.
They had plenty of spots to send me.
<br /> <i> How soon did you
begin to regret that? Or did you?</i>
<br /> I never regretted that.
I never found the war to be a particular hardship. You know there
were some hard parts. After the Tet Offensive, I was with the people
on Operation Pegasus when it broke through to Khe Sanh by land, and that
was the last major operation I was involved in. But I mean, if you're
gonna go out there and stick your face in it, you're gonna expect to get
some lumps, right? I couldn't complain. If it hadn't been for
my specific demand to go, I would never have been in Vietnam.
<br /> <i>When were you discharged?</i>
<br /> August, '68.
Let me tell you about that.
<br /> When I came back and
got off the plane, my parents picked me up and took me home to Russellville,
Alabama. I'm, of course, in total culture shock. Then they
announce they're moving the <i>very next day</i> to Washington state.
I've still got the dirt of Vietnam on (me), and I'm looking around the
house and everything's gone. All of it, all of my stuff, was already
packed up and shipped off, and they wanted to know whether I wanted to
stay behind or take off with them. I said, you know, I think I'll
go with you guys.
<br /> Well...I don't think
that was the best way for me to come home from the war. Instead of
coming back to a familiar place, I was there for one day and then the next
day we went to a totally aline environment for someone from the South,
which is the Pacific Northwest. Just like moving to Germany or something.
<br /> <i> You settled in Kelso,
Washington. What happened to you up there?</i>
<br /> I got married, was
married for two years. Lived above a hardware store in a really,
really cheap apartment. My wife worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
<br /> I was a desk clerk
in a hotel that catered to loggers. The reason I got the job was
because they needed a big guy like to on the graveyard shift because that's
when all the loggers would come in from the bars wanting to fight.
They'd already been in fights and they'd be dragging these scrubby, extremely
ugly prostitutes with them. The job gave me a lot of opportunity
to read--like Nathaniel West, you know. After about 3 o'clock when
all the loggers had passed out...
<br /> <i> Did you join any
veterans' groups after you left the Corps?</i>
<br /> No. I joined
Vietnam Veterans Against the War while I was still in Vietnam. About
February, '68. Also, I had a poem in <i>Winning Hearts and Minds</i>,
published by the First Casualty Press, which was the first anthology of
writing about the war by the veterans themselves.
<br /><i> I assume you've
seen Platoon.</i>
<br /> I've seen Platoon twice.
I'm glad it was made and glad it was a success, but the second time around
it has no nuance.
<br /> <i> Have you, by the
way, been to the Black Wall in the capital?</i>
<br /> Actually, no.
Personally, I don't consider visiting the Black Wall to be of any significance
to me. I don't need to look on that piece of stone to remember the
people I knew who got killed in Vietnam.
<br />
<br />
</span></span><br />
<center>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">LIVING LIKE A DOG IN
L.A.</span></span></center>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>WHEN YOU LEFT Kelso,
you came to California.</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">
<br /> That's right.
My wife and I broke up and I came to L.A. with my friend Art Cover, who's
a science-fiction writer. We came down and we hung out and we sponged
off of and roomed with our friend Harlan Ellison, another s-f writer, who
was gracious enough to put up with two 22-year-old twits who had nowhere
to go. Harlan took us in until we could afford a place of our own.
I worked at being an editor, again using the credentials of having been
a correspondent and having published a magazine. I found an editorial
job with an outfit called American Art Enterprises, which was then California's
largest publisher of--how can we term this?
<br /> <i> Pornography?</i>
<br /> How about racy material?
<br /> <i>Magazines with titles
such as...?</i>
<br /> We had one called Playpen.
Which featured guys dressed up like babies. Truck-driver types dressed
up like babies and being attended to, not in any sexual way, by matronly
looking middle-aged women. We're not talking mainstream here.
And we put out 36 separate magazines a month, each one featuring some kind
of kinky slant. Someone was making some major bucks out of that place,
millions of dollars. I worked there for six months, and I even saved
up some money myself and moved to Laguna Beach and started doing the starving
hippie writer trip.
<br /> <i> When did you actually
begin work on </i>The Short-Timers<i>?</i>
<br /> I wrote versions of
it, drafts of it, in Vietnam because I was a correspondent and we would
all be sitting around at the typewriter all the time, you know, writing
stories. That's why some of the characters in the books are named
after friends of mine from Vietnam.
<br /><i> How did you finally
finish the book?</i>
<br /> I lived like a dog
in L.A. Worked in used bookstores, did anything to keep myself going.
The book took seven years to write and three years to sell. It eventually
was published in '79 by Harper & Row and Bantam Books. But Harper
had rejected the manuscript previously, and Bantam had rejected it, too,
along with many others. It was considered poison, box-office poison.
<br /><i> Because it was about
Vietnam?</i>
<br /> Particularly a novel
about Vietnam. And particularly by someone unknown.
<br />
<br />
</span></span><br />
<center>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"I'M NOT MORE OR LESS
SELF-EDUCATED--I AM SELF-EDUCATED"</span></span></center>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
<i> </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>YOU'VE HAD LOTS of ups and downs with editors and publishers.
In a letter you sent me last year, you said: "Publishers are greedy
S.O.B.s....I'm not a precious little pale academic who writes poetry and
never raises his voice; I'm an ex-Marine and that makes me a hard and more
or less fearless individual, and if these hardball boys from the Harvard
School of Business want to play hardball, I'm in the mood to play hardball.
The next arrogant S.O.B. at Bantam that even coughs in my direction is
going to wake up with a piece of the world nailed to the side of his head."</i>
<br /> God, what an arrogant,
although funny, guy.
<br /> <i>The thing that strikes
me is that you developed as a writer despite the fact that you were more
or less self-educated.</i>
<br /> Well, I'm not more
or less self-educated. I am self-educated.
<br /> <i>Tell me about your
book collection. How big is it now?</i>
<br /> I have 10,000 books
in archive boxes that are numbered, and I have a card catalogue that cross-indexes
them according to the different subjects. It's a research library.
I'm interested in hard-boiled detective stories, the American Civil War,
Napolean, the Alamo, Custer, the Minoan civilization on Crete, Jack London,
Ambrose Bierce, ancient Greek coins--all kinds of things.
<br /> I intend to write a
biography of Ambrose Bierce, focusing only on his years as an officer in
the Civil War. I'm planning a trip to the battlefields to walk out
his route at each battle and get the layout in my mind so I can know what
I'm dealing with.
<br /> <i>What other books
are you working on?</i>
<br /> I have two finished.
<br /> <i> The Phantom Blooper</i>
is a sequel to <i>The Short-Timers</i> in which Joker is captured by the
Viet Cong and makes the decision to join them, fight alongside them.
The books shows the Viet Cong side of the war, which hasn't really been
dealt with before. Some editors have already rejected it on the grounds
that's it's...politically offensive.
<br /> The other book will
be the first in a six-part series, the "Dowdy Lewis" series. It's
called <i>A Gypsy Good Time</i>, and it's in the tradition of tough-guy
detective stories. This Dowdy Lewis is a modern-day bounty hunter
who also runs an L.A. bookstore featuring only books about the Old West.
Nonfiction books about the Old West--no novels.
<br /> <i> Would you consider
writing another screenplay?</i>
<br /> Well...I don't want
to be a screenwriter. I've thought about suggesting to Stanley that
he do <i>They Don't Dance Much</i>, that great '30s novel--you know the
one--as his next picture project. But I'm afraid he might get interested
and we'd be on the phone again for four years.
<br /><i> Theoretically you
stand to make a great deal of money if </i>Full Metal Jacket <i>is a worldwide
hit.</i>
<br /> Well, theoretically,
yeah. With a capital T. I have points in the film, yeah.
But that's movie money. It's like fairy gold, the leprechauns' gold.
I don't think I ought to make too much money. I'd just sit around
all the time reading my Civil War books.
<br />
<br />
<br /> WHEN I TURNED OFF the
tape recorder, Hasford popped his hands together. "Am I famous yet?"
<br /> He started leafing
through the pages of his victory letter from Australia. "Hmm...hmm....Maybe
you better put in that Stanley Kubrick is a diamond cutter of men.
I don't know for sure what it means, but it sounds good."
<br /> He began to gather
up his gear to go. "And put in that I'm not anything like Cpl. Joker.
I am not personally a Lusthog beast.
<br /> "And, let's see, put
in that I am zany and amorous. Tell the women of the world that I
am probably in love with them."</span></span>
Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-75849343564358409572013-01-04T00:07:00.000-08:002013-01-04T00:08:54.883-08:00VIETNAM MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRYAdvise & Dissent<br />
Opinion
BY GUSTAV HASFORD<br />
From <i>Penthouse</i>, June 1987<br />
<br />
The difference between a fairy tale and a sea story is that a fairy tale begins with "Once upon a time" and a sea story begins "This is no shit." Listen up, people, this is no shit: History may be written with blood and iron, but it is printed with ink, and it is made real and dangerous when it is put on film, the alternate literature of our times.<br />
<br />
When Joseph Heller went to the war he would later bring to life in his masterpiece, <i>Catch-22</i>, he says, "I actually <i>hoped</i> I would get into combat. I was just 19 and there were a great many movies being made about the war; it all seemed so dramatic and heroic. I remember my mother weeping as the trolley car pulled away with me on it. I couldn't figure out why she was so unhappy. I felt like I was going to Hollywood."<br />
<br />
Hollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood--we've all been there. From the maudlin soap opera of <i>The Green Berets</i> to the cartoon slaughterhouse of <i>Rambo</i>, Vietnam veterans have remained strangely silent while bombarded with Technicolor counterfeits of the Vietnam War flogged off like swampland by Hollywood Jacuzzi commandos, a Vietnam War as true to the facts as a platoon of Parris Island recruits double-timing down the Yellow Brick Road into the Emerald City.<br />
<br />
In <i>First Blood</i>, Rambo, John J., articulated in fluent growling-dog (suggesting that speech impediments may be an overlooked symptom of Post-Vietnam Syndrome) the civilian alibi for why three million Vietnam veterans are such a mess and a public disgrace: All of our best friends were blown up by Communist shoeshine boys. The gruesome deaths of some three million Communist shoeshine boys traumatized even us, the callous and dehumanized, and gave us defective headgear.<br />
<br />
<i>Rambo: First Blood Part II</i>--the <i>Triumph of the Will</i> for American Nazis--is proof of the Marine Corps proverb that there is always some asshole who does not get the word. Even at this late date, Rambo argues that despite appearances, and despite the facts, the Vietnam War was a righteous cause. Rambo satisfies our pathetic need to win the war and gives us another coat of whitewash as bumbling do-gooders, innocent American white-bread boy, pulled down into corruption by wicked Orientals. We <i>should</i> have won, and we<i> could</i> have won,<i> Rambo</i> argues, if only the dumb grunts could have been saved by grotesquely muscled civilians who somehow skated the shooting war (we're the same age, Sly), all of whom seem to be Green-Beret-Medal-of-Honor winners packing James Bond hardware.<br />
<br />
Hollywood Jacuzzi commandos are not men with paper assholes playing war, they're working the rubes, as usual. When we were kids and John Wayne charged up Suribachi, he was 40 feet high on the screen and tromping on wicked Orientals, a big white Godzilla, a hero of Homeric proportions, a <i>winner</i>. The genius of Hollywood is that it always knows which side of the bread contains the butter. For Vietnam War films, the smart money has always backed a policy of "reviling the veteran." The signing of a Big Millions deal for <i>Rambo</i> 3 and 4 says Hollywood is still on target and firing for effect, content to go on trivializing the war as long as it sells popcorn to U.C.L.A. coeds.<br />
<br />
The phrase "reviling the veteran" was first quoted to me by Stanley Kubrick, the internationally acclaimed filmmaker, during the shooting of <i>Full Metal Jacket</i>, a film based upon <i>The Short-Timers</i>, my novel about Marine grunts fighting the battle for Hue City during the Tet Offensive. "Reviling the veteran" is a serviceable phrase.<br />
<br />
Before the paperback edition of <i>The Short-Timers</i> was published, I received an author's proof of the cover. My civilian blurb writer, appealing to the prejudices of civilians everywhere, hailed my book as a story about "Vietnam violence freaks who kill and kill without a twinge of guilt." I put an arc light of angry objections across the hostile terrain of my publisher's intention. I was personally offended by the exploitative and factually inaccurate injustice of the blurb, which was obviously designed to sell books to civilians at the expense of veterans. Anticipating the appeal of <i>Rambo</i> by five years, the blurb was revised to read:"...a gung-ho bunch, <i>some </i>of whom kill and kill without a twinge of guilt."<br />
<br />
The motivations that have made "reviling the veteran" a civilian hobby are complex. My theory is that civilians are jealous of Vietnam veterans because we can skillfully shoot up heroin, barricade the door, and adjust the scope on a sniper's rifle all at the same time--no easy feat, as we all know.<br />
<br />
Another civilian alibi for branding us the children of Frankenstein and chasing us through newsprint villages with paper pitchforks with such neurotic intensity, for all these years, is because we are psychovets, trip-wire vets, walking time bombs.<br />
<br />
<i>Are </i>we plain fucking crazy? Did we, in some black jungle, lose our grip on the burned edge of reality? Make no mistake, the civilians revel in painting us as crazy, at least in their own movies. Or is it because Vietnam was the education we never go in school? Do they hate us because Vietnam veterans are fierce witnesses to hard facts civilians lack the intestinal fortitude to confront, even second hand? Truth is stranger than fiction, but is has never been as popular. If we can be dismissed as Section Eights, we can be pitied and patronized, a civilian tactic to resist our expert testimony with a willful ignorance as hard as iron.<br />
<br />
Do Vietnam veterans feel guilty? Only one individual in ten ever fired a shot in anger. Even Marines in the field rarely knew if they hit anything. Rambo has "59 confirmed kills," first tour, and scores another 90 during the film, for a total of 149, not counting blood trails, civilians, and water buffalo. My own score was perhaps more typical. In Vietnam I fired more rounds than the Stonewall Brigade fired at the Battle of Gettysburg. I was highly motivated, but my body count was a standing joke: I killed as many of them as they did of me. Looking back with flawless hindsight, I hope I hit nothing but trees, and I hope the trees lived. If I did kill a human being in Vietnam, it was a tragic accident or self-defense; I regret it, but I do not apologize.<br />
<br />
Civilians, weaned on recreational gore, do not understand that unreconstructed Vietnam veterans are not misfits. We're the first team, the varsity; we may not have been the brightest (the trouble with real life is that it's all first draft), but we were the best. Maybe we didn't have the money to buy our way out, but we had the balls to go to war, just as others had the balls to go to prison or Canada. What hurt us was coming home to confront civilians who were pale shadows of--and poor substitutes for--our loyal brothers in Vietnam. Civilians will never understand that if Vietnam veterans have been tortured, it was not by the Viet Cong but by the wives who still don't know we were there, the parents who demanded that we not express our pain, the sisters who were afraid to let us hold their babies, and the girlfriends who believed that if they made us angry we would kill them, because that's what the Vietnam veterans on television would do in the movies of the week that have been manufactured like cheese to accommodate the most irrational prejudices of a civilian audience.<br />
<br />
Before patrols, we said, "I think I'm going to hate this movie." Today, Vietnam veterans have not overrun the movie industry, but there are sappers in the wire. Besides Oliver Stone's acclaimed <i>Platoon</i>--and, of course, <i>Full Metal Jacket</i>, with a screenplay by Kubrick; Michael Herr, an honorary Marine and the author of the literary classic of the Vietnam War, <i>Dispatches</i>; and myself, Corporal, U.S.M.C., Retired--there's <i>Hamburger Hill </i>by James Carabatsos and<i> 84 Charlie Mopic</i> by Patrick Duncan, both in production, with more films by veterans on the way, many, many of them.<br />
<br />
Fighting history is a ball-breaking hump, and it is not for everyone. But Vietnam veterans who get tired of sipping their beer will be forced to accept the bitter, insufficient truth: We were not G.I. Joes passing out gum to orphans. John Wayne never cried, Audie Murphy never died, and Gomer Pyle never dipped a baby in jellied gasoline. Being young is the art of survival without weapons, but we had weapons, and we used them to burn Vietnam alive. Why did we go to war? They've been trying to figure that out since Hitler was a corporal. We were young, and the young love to travel.<br />
<br />
In Vietnam, we sometimes lacked grace under pressure, but we stuck it out, just the same. We died for Nixon's pride. We were an Orwellian army, it's true, but then in Vietnam nice guys didn't finish as all. It was Victor Charlie's land, and we were on it, and he made us get off. Not since my great-grandpappy was in the Georgia Militia have American soldiers been defeated. So the V.F.W. pretends that we're not veterans. And we try to pretend that Vietnam was an exceptionally noisy frat party in the hootch with warm beer, and not a cross between a gang-bang and a Chinese opera. Vietnam means never having to say you're sorry. We don't like to see ourselves as the last of the Keystone Kops. But there is no discharge from that war. We weren't Rambo, betrayed by C.I.A. spooks. It was a fair fight and we lost. That's some cold shit, man, but there it is.<br />
<br />
Now pogue historians want to embalm us and put us on exhibit, more gargoyles for the museum, while <i>Rambo</i> fans in the White House, who think they are Wyatt Earp and that Russian is Ike Clanton, yearn to provoke another Vietnam, somewhere, anywhere; same song, second verse. It's amazing how brave some people are willing to be with other people's sons. It's time to stop sipping our beer and get wired and hit back at all these silly people who presume to define us, our actions, and our motives. It's time to throw off the leper's bell of the Vietnam veteran. It's not enough to touch the names on the Black Wall and remember. Our finest tribute to our fallen dead would be to convince their sons that we were not Rambo and neither are they.<br />
<br />
Vietnam veterans have been buffaloed by self-serving civilians long enough. It's time for us to come out of the closet, to join ranks, to stand tall, lean, and mean--we are United States grunts, and we've come down here to battle. Stop patronizing us, keep your pity, do not presume to condemn us for things you know nothing about, stop telling us who we are, shut up while we sound off--all together now, girls, by the numbers--because, as the Spanish say, there is only one man who knows, and that is the man who fights the bull.<br />
<br />
Plato said only the dead have seen the last of war. Now war drums in the <i>Rambo</i> movies call us to another nightmare of lies and death. More than anyone, Vietnam veterans know what that means in hard facts. To the current crop of teenage cannon fodder, Vietnam is some kind of Chinese breakfast food. We've got to force them to listen to us. We owe it to them because we know their fathers. And we owe it to ourselves.<br />
<br />
If H.G. Wells was right about human history being more and more a race between education and catastrophe, we've got to denounce this silly but dangerous <i>Rambo</i> myth before some miscalculated O.K. Corral renders the entire continental United States into radioactive powder. If we can fight against the Rambo in each of us, the Rambo in our American bones, then, as Rambo says, maybe this time we'll win, and be soldiers on the good side, walking point for America again, until the stage blood dries and the future is a cold LZ.<br />
<br />
History is not over yet, and history collects its debts. Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-76968709542332344752013-01-03T23:50:00.001-08:002013-01-04T00:07:25.043-08:00Letter to U.S. Customs Office, 1987January 2, 1987<br />
Letter to U.S. Customs Office<br />
From Gustav Hasford, Australia<br />
<br />
To: U.S. CUSTOMS OFFICE, LOS ANGELES and Leaseway International
Corporation, Carson, California<br />
<br />
SUBJECT: Shipment from London, England, 124 pieces, 120
Royal Mail mailing cartons and four blue metal trunks<br />
<br />
This letter is intended to be both an official customs declaration (as per form 3299) and my authorization to the U.S. Customs and to Leaseway Corporation for the purpose of naming my friend Robert M. Bayer my representative in the matter of clearing my shipment through customs.<br />
<br />
Actually, I do not understand why this procedure cannot be delayed until my return to the United States, but since it is necessary for me to remain in Australia until the end of March, I see no alternative but to inconvenience my friend Bob, who has kindly agreed to deal with the paperwork.<br />
<br />
CONTENTS OF THE SHIPMENT:
First, I will tell you what it does NOT contain. There are no plants, animals, fur, bone, weapons (with the exception of a replica German officer's dagger), no explosives, liquors, perfumes, diamonds, counterfeit money, chemicals, food, or midgets. I've been through customs inspections in a lot of countries (Australian customs is the most strict, by far) and I can't think of anything in the shipment that anybody would object to.<br />
<br />
What is in the shipment, primarily, are books. Books shipped to England from the U.S. by myself, and books purchased in England. There are several boxes of stationary supplies--pens, paper, index cards. In one box there is a plaster bust of John Keats, the English poet. I don't know what else. Just junk and papers. Newspaper clippings. Piles of notes and manuscripts and papers. And, of course, souvenirs of the usual tourist type, a brass Eiffel Tower, things like that.<br />
<br />
I spent a year in London writing the screenplay for the upcoming Stanley Kubrick film, FULL METAL JACKET (see article attached) and I needed this ton of books and papers (600 pounds?) so that I might steal my ideas from the widest possible range of sources, the secret of good writing.
If any additional information is required, please feel free to call me collect.<br />
<br />
Cordially,<br />
Gustav Hasford Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-44015284492642979512013-01-03T13:08:00.000-08:002013-01-03T13:08:54.413-08:00The Short-Timers hardcover first edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjtMLH0i5djoj_DKBCLO596qTi9opg-2jcEpOk09OvqJlqzt6GPo96PNiZWcKe6HnaoAwFgX1MK41HCunxErnfjaUMkbNK7w7kFJIE3Z4wL2yX_ye5ABNAxp9M5tr7m0vzPqcr/s1600/timers2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjtMLH0i5djoj_DKBCLO596qTi9opg-2jcEpOk09OvqJlqzt6GPo96PNiZWcKe6HnaoAwFgX1MK41HCunxErnfjaUMkbNK7w7kFJIE3Z4wL2yX_ye5ABNAxp9M5tr7m0vzPqcr/s640/timers2.JPG" width="476" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
The hardcover first edition of The Short-Timers, published by Harper & Row in January 1979.<br />
<br />
<b>Dust jacket copy: </b><br />
From its opening pages in Marine boot camp on Parris Island to the excruciating suspense of its climatic finale during the jungle battle for Khe Sanh, The Short-Timers is a brilliant and savage reenactment of the descent into barbarism that formed the bottom line of the American intervention in Viet Nam.<br />
<br />
Terse and brief as a scream, The Short-Timers traces the career of a sardonic narrator ("Joker") through the organized sadism of basic training, into a distasteful assignment as a combat reporter, and finally to the command of a platoon of "grunts" in the chaos that followed the Tet offensive. It is a story about some of the most harrowing experiences Americans have ever been made to endure, the story of a gallery of young Americans who are turned into violence freaks while still remaining individuals--comic, pathetic, repellent, proud and caring.<br />
<br />
Sometimes surreal, sometimes all too realistic, and, without warning, funny, here is a novel that is--like its subject--as incongruous and undeniable as an exploding booby trap. It is a brutal novel because it is about the brutality of men trained to violence; but it is a book filled with the very rare and great compassion available to men who have survived the loss of their humanity in combat. This is a truly remarkable accomplishment for a first novel--which it is--or a tenth.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhi1VnJ8hCp9BBjwjM3u9VLngJj-ggCROLi6h7domjmMYnpJJytZ7pzJs16v0rxmO-8EpdLKO_Z_eUxnBVapKNL9PCyUMO5OpfCE-GX_PXeI-lF6A7-UAPb2prhW_mbnYeiMKE/s1600/young.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhi1VnJ8hCp9BBjwjM3u9VLngJj-ggCROLi6h7domjmMYnpJJytZ7pzJs16v0rxmO-8EpdLKO_Z_eUxnBVapKNL9PCyUMO5OpfCE-GX_PXeI-lF6A7-UAPb2prhW_mbnYeiMKE/s400/young.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dust jacket photo of Gus.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Gustav Hasford served as a Combat Correspondent with the First Marine Division in Viet Nam. He now lives and works in California.<br />
<br />
<b>From the back cover:</b><br />
Advance comments about The Short-Timers:
<br />
"Gustav Hasford has managed to capture the Viet Nam War's gritty realities without trying to deliberately shock, and its aura of unreality without degenerating into surrealism. Most of us who fought there will never put it behind us, and Mr. Hasford is obviously among those who cannot forget. It is a beautiful story, and it is true, and as he himself has said, 'The truth can be ugly.'"<br />
--Philip Caputo, author of A Rumor of War<br />
<br />
"Many are already forgetting the Viet Nam War. Actually, it is only now being discovered. Americans (except for the few who were in it) are only now learning what Americans did in that war--and what they will be doing in any other war that may 'break out' in the near future. To those who refuse to forget, who, instead, wish to know, I recommend Gustav Hasford's The Short-Timers.<br />
--Eric Bentley, critic
<br />
<br />Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-41797509429407215162013-01-02T20:44:00.001-08:002013-01-02T20:44:24.428-08:00About This SiteMy name is Jason Aaron. I write comic books. Gus Hasford was my cousin. My mom's nephew. I only met him two or three times in my life, and he died in 1993, when I was just out of high school, but nevertheless he had a tremendous influence on me.<br />
<br />
A few years after Gus died, I started to put together a website devoted to him, compiling what little I knew about Gus and whatever articles I could track down online. That site grew and grew over the years, to include dozens of short stories, interviews, remembrances, photos and more. Through that website I met Gus Hasford fans from all over the world, and ultimately even got invited to the reunion of Gus' fellow Vietnam War era Marine Combat Correspondents.<br />
<br />
Eventually though the site became terribly neglected and dated. This is me trying to dust it off and give it a new face. I'll be reposting most everything from the old site here and maybe even including some other stuff that never made it online.<br />
<br />
Please join me in continuing to celebrate the life and work of Gus Hasford. Thanks.Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-90639726201771064382013-01-02T20:29:00.001-08:002013-01-04T00:07:25.045-08:00IS THAT YOU, JOHN WAYNE? IS THIS ME?By GUSTAV HASFORD
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> "MARINE!"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!" I
snapped to attention and saluted a granite-jawed Marine major whose immaculately
green razor-creased jungle utilities must have looked splendid in snapshots
taken in the tall grass behind the CP and sent home to his wife.
<br /> The major executed
a flawless Short-Pause--a favorite device of Leaders-of-Men, designed to
give its victim a case of terminal insecurity. Not wishing to shatter
his blatant self-confidence, I gave him my Parris Island rendition of I
Am But a Humble Enlisted Person.
<br /> "Marine..." The
major was ramrod straight--Fists-on-Hips. This stance, coupled with
a deep, masculine Leader-of-Men voice, gave him that certain air of command,
despite that fact that I was a good foot taller and he was looking at the
bottom of my chin. "Marine..." he repeated. He seemed to like
the word. "What is that you're wearing?"
<br /> For a brief, horrible
moment I thought he meant the Be My Valentine's Day underwear my girl had
sent me from San Francisco. But he was looking at my chest.
The button!
<br /> The major stood on
tiptoes as though he wanted to kiss me, but he only wanted to breathe in
my face. I'd just returned from two weeks in the field and hadn't
been breathed on by a CP officer in all that time.
<br /> "Marine! Speak
up! I asked you a question!"
<br /> "You mean the button,
SIR?"
<br /> "What the hell is that
thing, Marine?"
<br /> "It's a peace symbol,
SIR!"
<br /> He paused and pondered.
I waited patiently, knowing that the major was obviously trying to remember
his O.C.S. classes in "Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships With Subordinate
Personnel." The other possibility was that he was going to hit me
and couldn't decide between kicking my shins or slapping my face.
<br /> His breath smelled
of mint. Marine officers never had bad breath, B.O., acne, or dirty
underwear. Marine officers didn't have anything until it was issued
to them.
<br /> The major jabbed the
button with a green forefinger, and cut loose with a really admirable Polished
Glare. Green eyes sparkled as he opened his red, white and blue teeth
and growled, "That's right, corporal. Act innocent. But I know
what that is, and I also know what it means!"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!"
<br /> "It's one of those
damned Ban-the-Bomb things--Admit it!"
<br /> "No, SIR!" I
was getting stiff from being at attention so long. Shifting weight--right
leg, left leg, right leg...
<br /> "Then what is it?"
<br /> "It's a peace symbol,
SIR!"
<br /> "Oh, yeah?" He
breathed some more--up close--as though he could smell lies.
<br /> "Yes, SIR, it's..."
<br /> "MARINE!"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!"
<br /> "WIPE THAT SMILE OFF
YOUR FACE!"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!"
<br /> The major moved around
me, stalking me, craning his neck to toss little "kill!" glances.
He smirked and bared green fangs, "Do you call yourself a Marine?"
<br /> I crossed my fingers.
Kings-X. "Yes, SIR!"
<br /> "Now look, corporal,"
he began to magnificent Fatherly Approach. "Just tell me why you're
wearing that Ban-the-Bomb thing. You can level with me. I want
to help you."
<br /> His plastic smile told
me that in exchange for finking on my fellow conspirators I'd receive a
cookie and would not be shot by the CIA for my un-American Activities.
<br /> "Where'd you get it.
Marine? Don't you know that Charlie Cong, the Dreaded Laundryman,
has been distributing those things all over the base? Why, they're
made in Hanoi!"
<br /> "My girl sent it to
me, SIR! On a postcard, SIR!"
<br /> "From the states?"
<br /> "From California, SIR!"
Pause. "San Francisco, SIR!"
<br /> The major's eyes grew
big at my confessing of consorting with demons, communists, intellectuals,
or worse.
<br /> "California.
I see. A hippie?"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!" I
smiled proudly. "An art student, SIR!"
<br /> He sneered. "Do
you think we should ban the bomb, Marine?"
<br /> I was solemn as hell.
My back was screaming. "No, SIR! We should bomb them back to
the Stone Age, SIR! But this is a peace button, SIR!"
<br /> "HA! So you admit
it! You advocate peace!"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!" Pause.
"Doesn't the major believe in peace, SIR!"
<br /> Long, long pause.
"You can't wear that button, Marine. If you don't remove it you'll
be standing tall before the Man."
<br /> We stood nose-to-chin
on the side of the road near the entrance to Phu Bai Combat Base.
Ghostly scenes from <i>The Sands of Iwo Jima</i> starring John Wayne flickered
around us. Somewhere in Never-Never Land Jim Nabors was singing:
"From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli..."
<br /> A huge white question
mark hovered over a green world...
<br /> "MARINE!"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!"
<br /> "WIPE THAT SMILE OFF
YOUR FACE!"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!"
<br /> "This is a combat zone,
Marine. Remember that. And you are a junior non-commissioned
officer in the finest military machine in the world--our beloved Corps.
We're here to defend Freedom and Justice so that all men may have the right
to express themselves without fear of reprisal. That's why I'm telling
you--you can't wear that button!"
<br /> "Yes, SIR!" I screamed.
"Kill the dirty rotten gooks, SIR! We can lick 'um all, SIR!
A good gook is a dead gook and three cheers for the VFW, SIR!"
<br /> "That's more like it,
leatherneck. You're going to be okay."
<br /> "But can't I kill for
peace and still believe in peace, SIR!"
<br /> The major suddenly
became fascinated by his wristwatch. "I...uh...I've no time for this
nonsense." He had Big Problems to solve--Big Decisions--papers to
initial, a big desk to sit behind and drink coffee, Real Guts magazines
to read, a chest toupee to comb. Besides, I knew there was no answer
to my question, at least not for the major. It was like asking a
hangman how he felt about capital punishment.
<br /> I saluted. The
major saluted. We both held the salute awkwardly while he added:
"Someday, when you've grown up a little, Marine, you'll see how childish
you are."
<br /> His voice--that beautiful
strong deep voice--had broken into a squeak on the word "childish."
<br /> I grinned. His
eyes fell. Both salutes cut away nicely.
<br /> "Good day, Marine,"
he said, and hurried away without looking back.
<br /> "Yes, SIR!" I called
out after him, "A beautiful day SIR!" And it really was.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Published in MIRROR NORTHWEST, vol. 3, 1972.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></i><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Mirror Northwest is a magazine of literature
and art by students and instructors of Washington State's community colleges."
<br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>from CONTRIBUTORS:</span>
<br />Gustav Hasford is a free lance writer
presently a student at Lower Columbia College.
<br /> </span></i>
<br />
Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-65789689161195679422013-01-02T16:24:00.001-08:002013-01-03T13:09:47.199-08:00I THINK I'M GOING TO HATE THIS MOVIE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTYstzhoO_ZpWNzEVPNDcud-xaYqRtkUJrWyQPJlk1FZj4o3XSMFPNLFnINZa-6UlKp3ddvXWcolOO4NhH8OW8pNTzJrXFeOhQkZDBdTQm4rQhQj9_bV8wDJPRaqqgBbykNjmX/s1600/Viet2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTYstzhoO_ZpWNzEVPNDcud-xaYqRtkUJrWyQPJlk1FZj4o3XSMFPNLFnINZa-6UlKp3ddvXWcolOO4NhH8OW8pNTzJrXFeOhQkZDBdTQm4rQhQj9_bV8wDJPRaqqgBbykNjmX/s640/Viet2.gif" width="432" /></a></div>
<center>
</center>
<center>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Jerry Gustav Hasford in Vietnam, circa 1968.</span></center>
<center>
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> </span></center>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"You're reading all
of this in the papers about all these things going on in the world, and
it just seems so exciting, and you just want to go somewhere," Hasford
recalls. "Where do you go if you're an Alabama kid with no money
and you don't know anybody outside of Alabama?" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You join the Marines,
and in 1967, you go to Vietnam...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"It was exciting,"
Hasford continues. "It was a foreign country, even if you didn't
exactly know where it was. I didn't have the slightest clue
of where Vietnam was. People say, 'Weren't you afraid you'd get killed?'
Nah. When you're 18, you don't have any fear that you're going to
get killed. You think you're immortal."</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">--from the Birmingham News, 1987</span>Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-30505289388586191102013-01-02T15:50:00.001-08:002013-01-03T13:10:07.408-08:00Interview with Gus from SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY TELEGRAM-TRIBUNE, January 31, 1979<center>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">Morro Bay vet writes war
novel</span></span></span><br />
<b>"You can't ignore" Vietnam
</b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">by Steve Churm
<br />SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY TELEGRAM-TRIBUNE,
January 31, 1979</span></span></center>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gustav Hasford laughs
a lot.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's an infectious
laugh that wells up deep inside his imposing frame and bursts forth with
the staccato impact of a machine gun. The roar of his rapid-fire
chuckle is followed by a wide grin that splits his long, round face.
The grin is commonplace these days.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tuesday was no exception.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Staring at the bleak,
gray day from the living room of his Morro Bay home, he erupted again.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Look at it," Hasford
said, as the driving rain pelted his slick, concrete patio slab<span style="font-size: small;">. </span>"It was like this almost
every day in Vietnam. Hell of a place to vacation. Ever been
there?"</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Most who have, went
on orders--not by choice.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Those who haven't,
should feel lucky, Hasford said. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Richard Nixon was president
in 1969. Student riots at Kent State University had split the soft,
vulnerable underbelly of American society. Out poured bitterness
and anger. Vietnam was an undeclared war, fast escalating into the
bloodiest and costliest conflict in history. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gustav "Gus" Hasford
was a raw, untested 18-year-old.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">He was a high school
dropout, the son of a German aluminum factory worker. He was also
one of 30 boys in the deep South village of Russellville, Alabama, eligible
for the draft<span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Like so many, Hasford
was faced with a no-win proposition: Enlist or be drafted.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"In a sudden wave of
patriotism I enlisted," Hasford said. "Did I really have a choice?"</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Six months later he
was in Vietnam filing news reports as a frontline combat correspondent
with the First Marine Division. Sometimes he'd write 10 stories a
day with such battlefield datelines as Hue, Da Nang and Quang Tri.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Each story was meticulous,
composed to strengthen and promote the Marine image--all guts and no fear.
Fact became fiction; the truth was lost in the translation.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The tour of duty lasted
10 months for Hasford. Then it was over.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">He lived to come home
and write his side of the story.</span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ4LcflJgqAlbubRDDFeUbSRd0rGnee6vaRpbZBOyDoBvqH7RSJcbm6CB4WUDYVgMWbHFs5M_Y2q46HiJWKVVA0qfU0uCKu0Dd5dE089IaMSlO-v06NABcO6pDIgZKO7T_qg3c/s1600/newgus28.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ4LcflJgqAlbubRDDFeUbSRd0rGnee6vaRpbZBOyDoBvqH7RSJcbm6CB4WUDYVgMWbHFs5M_Y2q46HiJWKVVA0qfU0uCKu0Dd5dE089IaMSlO-v06NABcO6pDIgZKO7T_qg3c/s400/newgus28.JPG" width="165" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gustav Hasford in 1979.<i><br /></i></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Short-Timers</i>
by Gustav Hasford, published by Harper And Row, is a fast-paced novel about
a sarcastic two-bit Marine combat reporter, whto rises to command a platoon
in the wake of the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In the end, the reporter
kills his earliest friend from boot camp in order to survive.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"It's not autobiographical,"
Hasford explained.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Those that read it
and know me, swear the main character, Joker, is me. They're wrong.
Sure, the story is based on my experiences to a degree, but I've changed
the names, places and times.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"No, Joker is a kind
of vague character--by design. The book is written in first-person,
present tense to lure the reader into the character. I want them
to feel, taste and sense the experience. He is like most of the young
boys who fought in Vietnam. They're all lost, undeveloped and downright
scared.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"I want the readers
to work. They must make up their own mind about the book, and more
importantly this brief excerpt from the war. I can't hand them the
answers."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Once discharged, and
back in the States, Hasford started his own search for the answers.
One solution was to write <i>The Short-Timers</i>.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">It took 10 years to
finish and another three years to get published.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">To bankroll the book,
Hasford worked six-month stints as an editor and copyreader for a rack-full
of so-called slick, girlie magazines in Los Angeles.</span></span><br />
<br />
<table border="0" style="width: 100%px;"><tbody>
<tr></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table border="0" style="width: 100%px;"><tbody></tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
"It was tolerable if one
understood it was to pay the way. Listen, there were guys who were
45 and making a career at those magazines. Fortunately I had something
else."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">That something else
was <i>The Short-Timers</i>.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"After the war I was
angry," Hasford said, sipping a beer and tilting backward in a swivel chair.
"The book proved to be therapeutic.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"I wrote for all those
veterans who wanted to express themselves, but just couldn't. Nobody
seems to listen to them, but they know the real story.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Veterans have either
been ignored or made scapegoats for the war. But they didn't want
to go. And when they lived to come home they were hassled and abused.
People asked them why they did all those horrible things.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Particularly older
folks are resentful of veterans. It was those people who felt the
war here at home--the loss of lives and limbs. And it was those folks
who pressed hardest for answers from veterans."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But Hasford admits
peoples' attitude toward the war, its atrocities and its apparent failures
and futility is slowly changing from bitterness to lukewarm acceptance.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Three years ago you
couldn't get a book like this published anywhere," he said, resting his
chin on his long, boney fingers atop an electric typewriter.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Once Hasford's wife
Charlene turns in at night, he writes till dawn. Since his first
story on coin identification appeared in Boy's Life for $5 when he was
14, Hasford has been a writer.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now, at 31, his subject
is Vietnam.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The topic has mass
appeal. There's a natural curiosity with the war now. It's
become more of a historical event, something to study and draw conclusions
from.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"At one time the word
Vietnam could split a cocktail party faster than a brush fire. On
one side would be the bleeding hawks, the other the soft-stroking doves.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Now people realize
you just can't ignore the war. It will always be something to scream,
cry or laugh about."</span></span>
Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09581088015338112713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-47587050508925725542008-07-18T10:23:00.000-07:002013-01-02T20:15:28.913-08:00Gus is big in IsraelThanks to Michael Zilberman for putting together this essay about Gus... in Hebrew.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.tofes630.com/blog/?p=69">http://www.tofes630.com/blog/?p=69</a>Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-19029698414498287402007-07-09T16:09:00.000-07:002007-07-09T16:11:33.394-07:00Army Times picks their 10 Best Military FilmsAnd number one is:<br /><br /><em><strong>1. Full Metal Jacket (1987)</strong><br />Private Joker, are you trying to offend me?<br /><br />Our pick for the best war movie of the past 20 years, if not all time, and it didn’t even crack the Top 400 ballot. Words fail to express how wrong that is.<br /><br />“Full Metal Jacket,” directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Matthew Modine, Vincent D’Onofrio and R. Lee Ermey (in the role that made him a star), could be considered two great war movies for the price of one. The first half of the film shows Marine recruits at boot camp, preparing for Vietnam, while the second half deals with the violence and uncertainty of that war.<br /><br />Perhaps it was the vulgarity and brutality of the film that made it such a tough sell for the voters. Or the vulgarity. Maybe the racism. Did we mention the vulgarity?<br /><br />Not for the faint of heart, “Full Metal Jacket” is about as real as it comes without signing a contract. Even today, many of the themes still ring true.<br /><br />And that’s all we have to say about that.</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.armytimes.com/entertainment/movies/military_afimovies_070709w/">Full text of the article here</a>Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-1160802070903491922006-10-13T21:58:00.000-07:002013-01-02T17:10:57.848-08:00Dale Dye on the Thunderbird ClubAn excerpt from Dale Dye's forthcoming autobiography, courtesy of <a href="http://www.warriorsinc.com/">WarriorsInc.com</a>:<br /><br />THUNDERBIRD CLUB – HILL 327, DANANG, SOUTH VIETNAM<br /><br />We lost a lot of good men during the ten years America prosecuted the war in Vietnam, trying at the last to get unstuck from that Asian tar-baby and having no more luck than Brer Rabbit did. That’s a crying ass shame, but more about that in a page or two. What’s another under-appreciated crying ass shame is our failure to disassemble, crate and ship the infamous Thunderbird Club from its perch on the military crest of Hill 327, just below the Command Post of the fighting 1st Marine Division in Danang, to re-assemble it at some easily-accessible location Stateside. We’d have a damn site fewer cases of PTSD among some of our Vietnam Vets if we’d done that when we un-assed the area back in 1975.<br /><br />The Thunderbird was an oasis for the cooks, clerks, label-lickers, box-kickers and other rear-echelon Marines who supported the fighting regiments of the Division out in the bush. It was strictly for enlisted men. The officers and senior NCOs had their own sanctorum where – due to their advanced maturity and rank – they were allowed to purchase a snort of hard liquor and get hammered like shit-house rats without fear of frowns from the riff-raff they ruled. For the enlisted swine laboring in the Division rear, it was the Thunderbird and beer only, usually hand-me-down cases of Carling Black Label served lukewarm in rusty cans. That swill was enough to gag a maggot. It was also cheap and served by bandy-legged Vietnamese girls exposing only a few suppurating jungle-sores beneath their mini-skirts. For the REMFs who labored through a mind-numbing tour of duty in the shadow of the flagpole, the Thunderbird was a pit stop between the shop and clean sheets in hard-backed hooches. For those of us who spent most of our time bashing the bush and chasing – or being chased – by the bad guys, the Thunderbird was nirvana. You’ll learn more about this shortly as it figures relatively large in my Vietnam experience but it’s important to give you a feel for the thing.<br /><br />Understandably, the pogues did not care for bush-beasts dropping by the Thunderbird bristling with weapons, stinking of paddy mud and wearing faded, sweat-stained jungle utilities above boots scuffed white from hard humping. The Invasion of the Bush Beasts was a close encounter with the war they were missing and an unwelcome reminder that they were – like it or not – in the rear with the gear; a mere scale in the tail of the dragon, well behind the teeth of the line outfits. That’s why those of us who served in 1967-68 as Combat Correspondents with the Division and spent the majority of our time out with infantry battalions dearly loved to descend on the Thunderbird – just to remind the pogues that they weren’t shit…and we were.<br /><br />The ambience was strictly GI with locally-fashioned picnic bench seating and an overall décor of painted plywood, but the Thunderbird did have a long plank bar where you could belly up and feel like you were pounding brews back in The World somewhere - as long as your supply of Military Payment Certificates (MPC) lasted. With beer at ten cents a can, that was usually about the time you puked or got hauled away by the Division MPs. If you were tapped out and the pogues weren’t feeling overly resentful, you could usually cadge a free round for the price of a good no-shit war story. If you’ve never been involved in insane shit like what went on regularly at the Thunderbird Club, Hill 327, Danang, your canteen cup will always remain half empty. You can’t find those kinds of kicks shooting nine-ball at your local sports pub.Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-1160449850703451622006-10-09T20:08:00.000-07:002013-01-02T17:11:25.577-08:00Reviving Gustav HasfordThe Southern literary journal storySouth has a great new piece remembering Gus, written by Jason Sanford.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.storysouth.com/comment/2006/10/reviving_gustav_hasfordt.html">Full text here</a>Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-1153188095098400622006-07-17T18:55:00.000-07:002013-01-02T15:39:33.566-08:00SHORTY: The 2nd Hardcover<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/1600/shorty--2ndhardcover.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/200/shorty--2ndhardcover.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I stole this photo from someone's recent ebay auction. I'd seen this edition of THE SHORT-TIMERS only once before: in the Russellville, Alabama public library, where it had been donated by Gus himself. I don't know an exact date on this printing, but I'm guessing it was 1986. Unfortunately, I didn't have the bucks to buy the copy off ebay. If anybody out there has one, let me know.Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-1153187180058325542006-07-17T18:30:00.000-07:002013-01-03T13:09:47.197-08:00Franklin County Times, 1969<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/1600/Gus--1969.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/200/Gus--1969.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><b></b><br />
<b>From the April 17, 1969 edition of the <i>Franklin County Times</i> in Russellville, Alabama:</b><br />
<br />
<b>Photo caption:</b> FORMER COUNTIAN CITED--Maj. Nelson M. Olf, left, presented Jerry G. Hasford, left center, Longview, Wash., and formerly of Russellville, a Navy Achievement Medal with Combat V on March 21. Hasford's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hasell Hasford, also shown, are formerly of Russellville. The parents witnessed the presentation.<br />
<br />
<b>Former City Resident Receives Marine Medal</b><br />
<br />
<b></b><br />
LONGVIEW, WASHINGTON --- A local Marine, whose parents thought he would be safer in Vietnam because he was a news correspondent, received the Navy Achievement Award with the Combat V at his home Friday.<br />
He is Cpl. Jerry G. Hasford, son of Mr. and Mrs. Hasell Hasford, formerly of Russellville. The elder Hasford is superintendent of packing and shipping at the Reynolds Cable Plant.<br />
Of the 10 men in his correspondents' section, Hasford was one of two who wasn't wounded. He was discharged from the Marines six months ago.<br />
In making the award, Maj. Nelson M. Olf, himself a Vietnam veteran, said Hasford participated in five major combat operations, including the bloody recapture of Hue in February 1968 where he was cited for his courage and composure under fire.<br />
Marine correspondents gather news and take photographs of combat operations and assist civilian correspondents visiting combat units. Hasford was with the 1st Marine Division.<br />
Marine Recruiter Sgt. Ken Stevens said he knows of no other local Marine who has earned the Navy Achievement medal during the past year and a half. "It's a high honor and is investigated thoroughly before being awarded," he said.<br />
Hasford lives with his parents at 2821 Terry Ave., Longview.<br />
<i>Thanks to John Hicks of the <a href="http://franklincountytimes.com/">Franklin County Times</a> for providing this article. </i>Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-1148934680219045712006-05-29T13:15:00.000-07:002013-01-02T20:14:21.452-08:00Memorial Day 2006: "Reviling the Veteran"<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/1600/home1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/200/home1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
As a Memorial Day tribute to Gus and all the other vets no longer with us, I reprint here a selection from his 1987 editorial, "Vietnam Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry."<br />
<br />
<b>The phrase "reviling the veteran" was first quoted to me by Stanley Kubrick, the internationally acclaimed filmmaker, during the shooting of FULL METAL JACKET, a film based upon THE SHORT-TIMERS, my novel about Marine grunts fighting the battle for Hue City during the Tet Offensive. "Reviling the veteran" is a serviceable phrase... </b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>The motivations that have made "reviling the veteran" a civilian hobby are complex. My theory is that civilians are jealous of Vietnam veterans because we can skillfully shoot up heroin, barricade the door, and adjust the scope on a sniper's rifle all at the same time--no easy feat, as we all know. </b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Another civilian alibi for branding us the children of Frankenstein and chasing us through newsprint villages with paper pitchforks with such neurotic intensity, for all these years, is because we are psychovets, trip-wire vets, walking time bombs.</b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Are we plain fucking crazy? Did we, in some black jungle, lose our grip on the burned edge of reality? Make no mistake, the civilians revel in painting us as crazy, at least in their own movies. Or is it because Vietnam was the education we never got in school? Do they hate us because Vietnam veterans are fierce witnesses to hard facts civilians lack the intestinal fortitude to confront, even second hand? Truth is stranger than fiction, but is has never been as popular. If we can be dismissed as Section Eights, we can be pitied and patronized, a civilian tactic to resist our expert testimony with a willful ignorance as hard as iron. </b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Do Vietnam veterans feel guilty? Only one individual in ten ever fired a shot in anger. Even Marines in the field rarely knew if they hit anything. Rambo has "59 confirmed kills," first tour, and scores another 90 during the film, for a total of 149, not counting blood trails, civilians, and water buffalo. My own score was perhaps more typical. In Vietnam I fired more rounds than the Stonewall Brigade fired at the Battle of Gettysburg. I was highly motivated, but my body count was a standing joke: I killed as many of them as they did of me. Looking back with flawless hindsight, I hope I hit nothing but trees, and I hope the trees lived. If I did kill a human being in Vietnam, it was a tragic accident or self-defense; I regret it, but I do not apologize. </b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Civilians, weaned on recreational gore, do not understand that unreconstructed Vietnam veterans are not misfits. We're the first team, the varsity; we may not have been the brightest (the trouble with real life is that it's all first draft), but we were the best. Maybe we didn't have the money to buy our way out, but we had the balls to go to war, just as others had the balls to go to prison or Canada. What hurt us was coming home to confront civilians who were pale shadows of--and poor substitutes for--our loyal brothers in Vietnam. Civilians will never understand that if Vietnam veterans have been tortured, it was not by the Viet Cong but by the wives who still don't know we were there, the parents who demanded that we not express our pain, the sisters who were afraid to let us hold their babies, and the girlfriends who believed that if they made us angry we would kill them, because that's what the Vietnam veterans on television would do in the movies of the week that have been manufactured like cheese to accommodate the most irrational prejudices of a civilian audience...</b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Fighting history is a ball-breaking hump, and it is not for everyone. But Vietnam veterans who get tired of sipping their beer will be forced to accept the bitter, insufficient truth: We were not G.I. Joes passing out gum to orphans. John Wayne never cried, Audie Murphy never died, and Gomer Pyle never dipped a baby in jellied gasoline. Being young is the art of survival without weapons, but we had weapons, and we used them to burn Vietnam alive. Why did we go to war? They've been trying to figure that out since Hitler was a corporal. We were young, and the young love to travel. </b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>In Vietnam, we sometimes lacked grace under pressure, but we stuck it out, just the same. We died for Nixon's pride. We were an Orwellian army, it's true, but then in Vietnam nice guys didn't finish as all. It was Victor Charlie's land, and we were on it, and he made us get off. Not since my great-grandpappy was in the Georgia Militia have American soldiers been defeated. So the V.F.W. pretends that we're not veterans. And we try to pretend that Vietnam was an exceptionally noisy frat party in the hootch with warm beer, and not a cross between a gang-bang and a Chinese opera. Vietnam means never having to say you're sorry. We don't like to see ourselves as the last of the Keystone Kops. But there is no discharge from that war. We weren't Rambo, betrayed by C.I.A. spooks. It was a fair fight and we lost. That's some cold shit, man, but there it is. </b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Now pogue historians want to embalm us and put us on exhibit, more gargoyles for the museum, while Rambo fans in the White House, who think they are Wyatt Earp and that Russian is Ike Clanton, yearn to provoke another Vietnam, somewhere, anywhere; same song, second verse. It's amazing how brave some people are willing to be with other people's sons. It's time to stop sipping our beer and get wired and hit back at all these silly people who presume to define us, our actions, and our motives. It's time to throw off the leper's bell of the Vietnam veteran. It's not enough to touch the names on the Black Wall and remember. Our finest tribute to our fallen dead would be to convince their sons that we were not Rambo and neither are they. </b>Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-1146674231459686372006-05-03T09:27:00.000-07:002013-01-02T17:12:53.603-08:00Platoon: 20th Anniversary DVD<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/1600/B000F1IQJG.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V55533426_.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/200/B000F1IQJG.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V55533426_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />To celebrate the film's 20th anniversary, there's a new DVD edition of Oliver Stone's PLATOON due out May 30. And it comes complete with an all-new commentary by Daddy D.A. himself. For those who don't know, Capt. Dale Dye is not only the preeminent military technical adviser in Hollywood, he's also a hardcore Gus Hasford devotee, going back to their days together in the 1st Marine Division ISO Snuffies. Considering Capt. Dye's commentary on the previous PLATOON DVD is still one of my all-time favorite commentary tracks, I'm anxious to hear what he has to say for this 20th Anniversary Edition.<br /><br />On a side note, congrats to Capt. Dye and his new bride, Julia, on their recent nuptials. Here's wishing them both a lifetime of cold LZs.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F1IQJG/qid=1146673445/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-4724657-5720666?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130">Copies available at Amazon</a><br /><a href="http://www.warriorsinc.com/">Capt. Dye's official website --WarriorsInc.com</a>Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-1146535172803925412006-05-01T18:43:00.000-07:002013-01-02T15:38:48.375-08:00Full Metal Jacket Diary<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/1600/1590710479.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/200/1590710479.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Even though it first came out back in October 2005, you still may have missed the boat on this one. FULL METAL JACKET DIARY collects actor Matthew Modine's thoughts, observations and personal photos from his time spent playing Private Joker. Sadly, it doesn't mention much at all about Gus Hasford, but it's still a must for any Full Metal Jacket fan. This first printing is a limited, numbered edition with a special metallic cover.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590710479/qid=1146534137/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-4724657-5720666?s=books&v=glance&n=283155">Copies available at Amazon</a><br /><a href="http://www.matthewmodine.com/diary_review.html">Reviews collected at MatthewModine.com</a>Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27383993.post-1146508315662210252006-05-01T11:31:00.000-07:002013-01-02T17:13:55.124-08:00Semper Gus<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/1600/home5.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2558/2812/200/home5.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />It was seven years ago that I first created a website devoted to my late cousin, Gustav Hasford. In that time the site has grown from almost nothing to a huge collection of stories, interviews, photos and even the complete texts of his first two out-of-print novels. I've received emails from his fans all over the world. I've met his friends and fellow Marine combat correspondents. And I've learned a lot more about my cousin than I ever knew when he was alive. Unfortunately, I haven't had as much time lately to devote to the site, due to my own fledging writing career and the recent birth of my son. Yet even though parts of the site could use a real overhaul and update, it's still your one stop shopping source for all things Gus related, and I'll always do what I can to keep it that way. Beyond that, one of my goals in life remains the writing of a full-fledged Gus Hasford biography. Stay tuned on that one.<br /><br />To kick off this new blog, I'll pass along the most recent fan letter I received, this one courtesy of the newest generation of Gus fan:<br /><br /><strong>Dear Gustav (or whoever this is being sent to), </strong><br /><strong>I have recently seen the movie Full Metal Jacket and i loved it. For school we are supposed to be reading a book and doing talks about it, and I couldn't think of a better book to do it on. Once I found out that Full Metal Jacket was based on The Short Timers, I wanted to instantly acquire the book and read it. Sadly, your book is out of print and I wasn't really into reading about that kind of stuff when I was a small child. I have gone to major extents to find a copy of this book, but sadly, I'm not really allowed to spend over $100 on it through Ebay. If you know of anyone who has a version of this book and will sell it or if there is some place I could find it, it would be a really cool thing of you. I greatly appreciate you even reading this E-mail, it means a lot to me. Thanks a mil, </strong><br /><strong>Nick</strong><br /><br /><strong>Dear Mr. Aaron, </strong><br /><strong>First off, thanks for replying. Secondly, I know that you will probably think the fact that I want this book at my age ( 13 btw ), is absurd. Actually, I'm quite mature for my age and enjoy reading books like this. Just to clear up the fact that I'm too young, even though I probably am. As for acquiring the book, I've been checking Ebay daily and there's, sadly, nothing. I hate being a nag but do you know any antique book stores or online sites, I'm in Chicago. Also, do you know why they pulled the plug on this book and stopped producing it? Greatly Appreciated! </strong><br /><strong>Peace, Nick</strong><br /><br />For the record, I did help the kid find a copy of Shorty. I hope his mother approves.Jason Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05677596005810549619noreply@blogger.com1